


the truth may vary

by whooves



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Alternate Universe - Vampire Slayer, F/M, Rose is a vampire slayer, The Doctor is a vampire, they kind of decide to team up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-24
Updated: 2013-06-24
Packaged: 2017-12-16 01:53:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/856434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whooves/pseuds/whooves
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Can I help you?” she asks, and he dangles a white paper bag between two thin, pale fingers. He gives her his best and widest grin.</p>
<p>“Brought chips,” he says, and all of her hesitance disappears. She’s got a Beretta tucked in a hip holster, knives in either boot, and a small sword in a well-crafted sheath down her back. She keeps stakes on her coffee table. If he comes at her, she’s got a hundred ways to take him out.</p>
<p>Also, she’s starving.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the truth may vary

**Author's Note:**

> So, I finally started my trope bingo card.  
> This is a vampire AU (not specifically BtVS, never seen it, sorry!)  
> Also, this reads like a multi-parter. I may come back to it long enough to get them to kiss, but I’m not making a thing out of it!
> 
> (title lovingly stolen from an of monsters and men song)

He’s got a strange sense of humor, a charming grin, and pointed teeth.

She’s got a gun and great aim. He’s lucky that he’s not on her radar, and he’s told her as much.

Still, she finds him in her flat late one night (the ‘can’t enter without permission’ thing is completely bogus) and all she does is roll her eyes and toss her brown leather coat onto her kitchen table. his lanky frame is sprawled out on her couch, one leg propped up on the armrest, the other on the floor.

“Can I help you?” she asks, and he dangles a white paper bag between two thin, pale fingers. He gives her his best and widest grin.

“Brought chips,” he says, and all of her hesitance disappears. She’s got a Beretta tucked in a hip holster, knives in either boot, and a small sword in a well-crafted sheath down her back. She keeps stakes on her coffee table. If he comes at her, she’s got a hundred ways to take him out.

Also, she’s starving.

As she grabs the bag out of his hands and digs in, he laughs at her. She perches herself cross-legged on the coffee table, and he gazes at her with dark eyes. Rose feels comfortable around him in a way that she really shouldn’t, but it’s hard to be on your guard all the time. He’s never tried to attack her before, he just casually watches her, and sometimes makes a passing joke.

“Heard you were heading down to the cellar of the old Miller house today, thought you’d be hungry after that job. How was it?” his voice is curious and he peers at her under long black lashes. She shrugs, wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, and lets a bit of the tension seep out of her shoulders.

“Exhausting,” she admits, after a long pause. He chuckles. “And I totally busted up my shoulder,” she says. “Threw it a bit too hard at a door.” Her tone is flat and dry. “Got rid of the vampire infestation, though.”

“Ah, well done. But you’ve gotta watch out for those pesky doors,” he says, with a wink. She eases the edge of her loose-fitting long-sleeve shirt off her shoulder, and grimaces at the sight. It’s dark purple and splays from her shoulder, partially across her back. There’s also blood crusted in a line across the same collarbone. When she looks up from her shoulder, he’s sitting upright, leaning close to her. His fingers are inches from her wounds, eyes bright and calculating. He nods towards her shoulder.

“May I?” he asks. She takes a long, wary pause before acquiescing. “I’m going to get a towel with warm water. Take off your shirt.” She raises her eyebrows, but he’s already up at her sink, rifling through her drawers to find a clean towel. Rose hisses as she pulls her arms up, and she can’t stop the small whimper from escaping when she lets her arm back down.

“Hold still,” he says, leaning close. “You need to clean this or it’s going to get infected.”

“Thanks, Doc,” she says sarcastically, biting out the last word, and his lips twitch into a smile.

“They do call me the Doctor, you know,” he muses, lips still curled.

“Kind of like how they call that sucker up on North Street ‘The Master?’” she asks him dryly, with another roll of her eyes. The Doctor stills in a way only the undead can, pale and marblesque. She would swear he was a statue, if she couldn’t feel the pressure on her collarbone to stem the bleeding. The stillness lingers, in the curvature of his mouth and the coldness of his eyes, even when he moves his hand and dabs across her shoulder, cleaning up the dried blood.

“Don’t go up there,” he says, and she raises her eyebrows with piqued interest. He hasn’t told her what he’s even doing here, besides patching up her shoulder, and now he’s warning her away.

“Why not?”

“Just don’t,” and something in his eyes flashes so painfully that Rose nods, a bit taken aback. “Anyways,” and he switches his analytical gaze back to the cut on her collarbone, “if what they say is true, this should be healing up in no time. That bruise will be gone by tomorrow morning.” His lips curl into an amused smile.

Rose turns her head away, taking in a deep breath.

“And what do they say?” she asks softly.

“They say,” he accidentally jostles her arm and she hisses, “Oh, sorry. They say you carry lycanthropy, but that you don’t shift.” The words roll out of his mouth are curious but warm, as if the thought is amusing.

“Do they,” she says, without a question in her voice. She sounds bored, and her eyes find his as she edges her head back towards him. He sets the damp, bloody towel on the ground, and leans forward, putting his elbows on his knees.

“They do,” he says, and leans closer. He must see something in her eyes, because his mouth twitches in satisfaction. “You do have something of the wolf about you.” Her eyes narrow.

“Why are you here?” she asks, snagging a now-cold chip from the bag, and standing.

He smiles again, a seductive, but tentative thing.

“You must be aching. Why don’t you get a shower and I’ll cook you up something more substantial?” She cocks her head at him and fixes him with a bewildering stare. Standing, he laughs and puts his palms up. “Promise I won’t ambush you. But I do have a…proposition.”

“I have a cross, with the faith to back it up,” she says. He laughs again. “Believe me, I have no intent to sink my teeth into that delicious neck of yours, Rose Tyler.” (It’s the first time he’s said her name, and she denies the shiver that threatens to run down her spine).

“Fine, then. I’ll be just a few.” Clad in only her bra and black jeans, she strides off to her room and the ensuite, jokingly dangling her cross out of her shirt at him. He shooes her off, and she laughs.

She’s got a vampire in her kitchen, making her dinner.

Still, it could be worse. So she showers the blood out of her hair and dresses in clean flannel pajamas with a button-up shirt. It’s true, Rose will heal up fast - but it’s still a right pain to jostle her shoulder around too much, so she abandons anything she’ll have to slip over her head.

When she emerges, wet hair up in a mess at the nape of her neck, and face scrubbed pink, there’s warm spaghetti with red sauce on a plate for her, sitting next to a steaming mug of tea. The Doctor has her apron on, and she laughs.

“Pink isn’t your color,” she says, and he grins back at her. It’s disarming; she’s never seen a vampire smile this much without trying to take a chunk out of her neck. She finds she likes it, even if it is a bit unnerving.

“Yes, well, we can’t all be blonde and beautiful,” he says. “Eat your pasta while it’s warm. Added some garlic powder and basil to the sauce. Should be tasty, from what I remember.”

“Do you miss it?”

“Food?” he asks, taken aback.

“Yeah,” she says around a mouth full of spaghetti. “I mean, I can’t imagine. This is fantastic.” She licks some sauce off the corner of her mouth and smiles up at him.

“Thanks,” he says, and takes a long pause. Rose almost forgets her question and shovels more pasta in her mouth before he answers. “Bananas. I miss bananas the most. Bananas were good.”

“Come off it,” she says, laughing at him. “All of the worldly cuisines you’ve probably had, and you miss bananas?” He shakes his head.

“You never know what you’ll miss until you can’t have it any more.” His gaze holds hers with a certain weight, and her eyes are the first to drop. She recovers quickly.

“How old are you, anyways?”

“Enough to have loved nine or ten lifetimes,” he says, only vaguely answering the question. She slurps up the last of her spaghetti in record time, and sits back contentedly.

“Thank you,” she says before yawning. He gracefully dips his head, and motions back to the sitting part of her flat, towards the sofa. She settles in the corner of the couch, and the Doctor sits near her, near enough that his knees bump hers when she folds her legs under her, tucking her feet into the cushions. “So what is it? You know I’m going to help you, so you might as well spit it out already.” He raises his eyebrows, but smiles. She shrugs.

“It’s a matter of something called ‘the Nestene Consciousness.’ They’re a band of human familiars, but they’ve grown stronger than their masters. They’re just south of here, far enough to not bother us quite yet, but they’ll come soon enough.” He pauses. “Unless…”

“Unless we stop them. Yeah, fair enough. But why are you asking me? What’s in it for you?” Her eyes narrow, and he props an elbow on the back of the sofa. The gesture is so human and his face is so full of light thats he forgets for a moment, what he really is.

“I like London. I like London to stay how I like it, not overrun with mind control and vampires with no decency to keep their snacking behind doors. In other places, bodies litter the streets.”

“So you’ve renounced your own kind?” The Doctor laughs bitterly at this, and shakes his head.

“They’re not my kind, not really. I’m part of a different line. A nearly dead line. I would give you the whole ‘sanctity of human life’ tirade, but you’d find it dull.” He goes quiet again, and his eyes seem far away. “Still, just me now. On my own.” Rose’s hand finds his, and she interlaces her fingers with his own. He looks down and seems surprised.

“There’s me,” she says, and he smiles.

“Yes, Rose Tyler. There’s you.” He doesn’t let go of her hand. “We’ll need to take action soon, unless you want to find your dear friends and family drained of blood within the next month.” Rose takes a deep breath and tried not to laugh at his nonchalant and amused tone.

“Can it wait until morning? I need at least ten hours of sleep if you expect me to do anything decent with a cult of practitioners and vampires.” The teasing note in her voice emerges, and the Doctor stands, fingers still twined with Rose’s. He nods.

“I suppose.” His fingers idly stroke the back of her hand before loosening his grip. “Sleep well, Rose. I shall see you tomorrow at sunset.” He bends slowly to press a kiss to the top of her head. With his inhuman speed, he’s out of the door before she can blink, and she cracks her knuckles, chasing away the feeling of his hand in hers.

Shaking her head to rid herself of the mess of thoughts, she goes to lock her door, and then slips to her bedroom.

She’s asleep seconds after she loads her gun, tucks it in the edge of her mattress, and lays her head on her pillow.


End file.
